MY WILL V. GOD'S WILL

[The following is a reprint of a previous blog of mine from October 31, 2008.]

I have ever found it a puzzle that my very best intentions so often run amok.

I can remember the many times that, on awakening, I would determine I was going to be a more loving person that day…usually in regret for the way I’d behaved the day before. And I’d no sooner walk out my front door than someone would come into my world, doing it wrong…didn’t much matter what “it” was, they were doing it wrong, and I’d just have to let them know…most often by silent scorn, which speaks louder than words.

I was thinking once about how friendships…true, good, seemingly forever friendships…are broken. How the reason for the break can be a simple difference of opinion, dressed up as Core Values and therefore immutable.

It seemed the way to avoid this should be simple. My idea: just make a commitment with my friends to always agree that the other one is right, no matter what the cause, which would clear the way for rational discussion.

Then my blinding flash of the obvious: for me, that is humanly impossible. No matter how good, pure, simple my solution seems to me to be, on my own, I will always default to me, my way, my will.

The difference in my will vs. God’s will is without God, without spiritual principles, it matters not how pretty I make my will sound, it’s still a self-determined objective…not of God.

If, however, I will make the effort to remember to turn to God when I sense any unknown coming, good or bad, and simply say “Thank You,” that opens the door for God’s perfect will to come forth.

There are times when I’m searching for God’s will in a given situation…I talk with my mentor, my friends, my confidants, I pray about it, I journal…in short, I do all the “right” things. And I go forth thinking I got God’s will here, and KA-BOOM…wrong, wrong, wrong. That, too, is God’s will.

If the end result initially looks wrong to me, I need to look deeper. I can’t think of any mistake I’ve made (and I’ve made way more than my share) that hasn’t eventually been beneficial to me…if only through a deeper sense of humility (of which I am never going to have too much).

God uses what I give him to use…what I am is what He perfects.

 Thank You.